FIELDS MATHED FORUM MEETING AGENDA

Seasons opening: What (event, emotion, experience, )
inspired you to dedicate yourself to mathematics education?This
is a prelude to the November session on Humanistic Mathematics.
We will be joined by the Humanistic Mathematics group over the video-conference.
Activities will include pair-and-share, group sharing, telling stories,
and the whole group discussion.

12PM-1:00PM LUNCH BREAK (Light refreshments provided)

Afternoon Program:

1:00PM-1:40PM

Susan Goldin-Meadow (University of Chicago, IL): How our hands
help us think about math.

When people talk, they gesture, particularly about mathematical
concepts. We now know that these gestures are associated with learning.
They can index moments of cognitive instability and reflect thoughts
not yet found in speech. What I hope to do in this talk is raise
the possibility that gesture might do more than just reflect learning
-- it might be involved in the learning process itself. I consider
two non-mutually exclusive possibilities. First, gesture could play
a role in the learning process by displaying, for all to see, the
learner's newest, and perhaps undigested, thoughts about a mathematical
problem. Parents, teachers, and peers would then have the opportunity
to react to those unspoken thoughts and provide the learner with
the input necessary for future steps in mastering the problem. Second,
gesture could play a role in the learning process more directly
by providing another representational format, one that would allow
the learner to explore, perhaps with less effort, ideas about a
mathematical problem that may be difficult to think through in a
verbal format. Thus gesture has the potential to contribute to cognitive
change in mathematics and other domains, directly by influencing
the learner and indirectly by influencing the learning environment.